Ho-ho-ho, comrades! It’s a socialist Christmas!

Nothing is more socialist than Christmas. You work all year, you save your hard-earned money, and then you’re expected to give it to other people.

There’s no official requirement to do it, but the peer pressure to give gifts is brutal. Even if you like your friends and family, they haven’t done squat to earn their share of your money.

Venezuelan strongman/nutjob Hugo Chavez has taken this idea and run with it, hosting that nation’s first socialist toy fair. The toys were offered at discounts of up to 80 percent. Not only do people get free gifts, but the government is bankrolling the costs to the gift-giver.

And, as is always the case with everything connected to socialism, there are long lines and shortages. The toy fair is running out of toys and may have to close early.

What next? Gift panels? Money for teeth? Eggs hidden in the yard?

Meanwhile…

The Italians hate their PM more than you hate your PresidentThe Game: Displaying emotion and acting irrationally toward someone in power with whom you have a fundamental political disagreement

Game recapItaly wins because there’s no haranguing, no drawn-out arguments and no lies. It’s short, simple and succinct. It makes a visible statement. It leaves visible marks.

While a handful of Americans have turned into political grifters — using diversionary tactics and lies — in order to drum up hatred of President Barack Obama’s policies, the Italians just cut to the chase. Massimo Tartaglia is in the hole because he opened a can of whupass and emptied the contents on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Until the White House Gate Crashers, this would’ve been impossible. If you wanted to punch the president, Secret Service agents would’ve donated several pieces of hot lead to your torso.

But now, it might be a clearly different ball game. If you’re angry enough and stupid enough to go “Tartaglia” on the president, go for it!

Illegal downloads are killing HollywoodMoviemakers say file sharing systems such as bit torrent are taking the kobe beef and caviar off their hand-carved ivory tables.

Let’s be blunt: Women don’t need to pay for sex. If they want it, they can get it. End of story. Guys, however, always want sex and can never get it. Many of them are willing to pay for sex on a regular basis.

That means straight guys, who don’t have the time or social skills to land a girlfriend, are a good market for the giant pool of female prostitutes.

The market for gay men or straight women paying for sex, however, might be iffy. This will be a limited and refined market. If you opt to saddle up, you might not like the clientele you draw.

Writes Fox: That has riled conservative activists, who cite a little-noticed quirk in North Carolina’s Constitution that disqualifies officeholders “who shall deny the being of Almighty God.” The provision was included when the document was drafted in 1868 and wasn’t revised when North Carolina amended its constitution in 1971.